Get out your tissues, fans. There's going to be plenty of waterworks with tonight's season finale of "The Vampire Diaries."

We already know that Elena will finally choose between Stefan and Damon Salvatore; executive Producer Julie Plec has promised us that much for a few weeks. But that won't be the only romantic moment liable to generate tears on couches nationwide, according to Mystic Falls remaining vampire-werewolf hybrid.

"I'll tell you what: There is a scene between Caroline and Tyler that's gonna get ya," Michael Trevino promised, speaking to Hollywood Crush by phone. "It might even top the one you saw last week. [There will be] a lot of waterworks happening. Before we did the scene, I was like, 'I want to make females cry.'"

There will also be blood, there will be death and there will be cliffhangers galore as season three wraps up with "The Departed."

"There is a fair amount of blood. Blood will be shed. This is 'The Vampire Diaries' and not everybody survives," Michael confirmed.

Whomever is heading to the other side, Michael said the cast has already had some time to say goodbye. "Everybody knew who was going in our finale this year probably around when we were shooting episode maybe 20. So a good three weeks, if not more. We had an idea. And things change so last minute but I would say at least two or three episodes before a character dies off, that person and the whole family—everybody—is basically aware that's the route we're going with our story."

The man who plays Tyler Lockwood promised "there's a lot going on" and "it's a packed episode," which sound like the understatements of the year given how much we already know. Super vampire hunter Alaric is still on the loose. Plus there'll be a flashback to that night on the bridge when Elena lost her parents. Julie has always said she's against flashbacks that don't tell us something about the present, so we expect to learn some added details about that pivotal event in the show's mythology. There's nothing supernatural, we know that, but we also know that Paul Wesley had to get SCUBA certified (Nina Dobrev did so a long time ago).

"We have big stunts when we go back to the flashback of the car crash on the Wickery Bridge," Michael said. "We also have flashbacks of when it seems like everybody was a freshman in high school. We see Matt Donovan in a letterman jacket. We see Elena in a cheerleader outfit."

Whatever Trevino's character was up to, we won't be seeing it onscreen. "Unfortunately we will not be seeing Tyler in any flashbacks. I'm pretty sure Tyler was off picking on some nerd in the cafeteria, stealing somebody's food, or hitting on some girl... I don't know. He was off doing something that just wasn't really important."

The evolution of his character has been one of the many well-written arcs during the show's run. After all, Tyler was something of a bully when we met him in season one. "At the time it was frustrating but now I'm grateful having gone through that because now you can really, really see the progression in the character from season one to what we have now," Michael said. "I'm glad this is a supernatural show where I can turn into a werewolf and then turn into a hybrid, so, it worked out."

Part of that evolution has included Tyler breaking his "sire bond" with Klaus, which raised the question: Will every hybrid be able to break their bond with Klaus and thereby spoil his plan to create a hybrid army? "I don't think every hybrid could do it, because not all of them are in love with Caroline," Michael pointed out.

Of course the plans for the baddest of the Original bad boys have already been foiled. The last time we saw Klaus, the Salvatore brothers were dropping his paralyzed body into the Atlantic. "It'd be hard to say that Klaus is gone forever from the show. I would imagine we would see him back in some capacity. But it's not going to be so soon, I feel," Michael said. "With how our season finale ends, there's going to have to be enough time to deal with a lot of other problems before we could deal with the return of Klaus, if it were to happen. Right now, for the time being, we're just glad he's completely gone. The guy is actually gone. Like, 'Wow, OK!'"

That celebratory moment—when most of the gang had a pizza party and did shots together toward the end of last week's episode—was reminiscent of the scene the week before when almost the entire cast gathered onscreen to say what they thought was goodbye to Alaric. Granted one moment was festive and the other somber, but both allowed for everyone to spend some valuable time together as a group both onscreen and behind-the-scenes.

"I love those scenes because I rarely ever work with Kat Graham or Nina, so it's nice," Michael said. "We really have a blast with those scenes. We don't even get that much work done because take after take we're just laughing and goofing off and having a good time. I love those scenes because they're very rare."

There'll be no moment like that tonight, however. "In the finale, there's so much going on and people are separated and dealing with their own problems—Alaric, or the flashbacks. Everybody is going through their own little problems in our finale."

We will see the return of at least one Original: Elijah. But Michael couldn't tell us anything about that. "I can [tell you some details] but I won't because I'm going to ruin it and tell you something I'm not supposed to," he said, with a laugh. "I'll just say that he does return and leave it at that!"

After tonight's events, we'll know a lot more about the direction of season four. But one thing we do know is that "The Vampire Diaries" crew will be finishing high school next year. Michael told us he's confident that "TVD" will successfully avoid the obstacles that have tripped up other teen shows during that transition.

"I would like to see us all graduate. I don't want to see any cop outs where we find out somebody flunked or that somebody is actually a junior, you know? That's very important. I hope that we stay true to really what's going on here. We have to graduate at some point! But I also don't want to go too far to where it's 'Saved by the Bell: The College Years,' you know what I'm saying? I don't want that, either. Julie is amazing. We have